{"id":609920,"date":"2026-04-17T09:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609920\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:23:11","slug":"metro-vancouvers-investment-attraction-agency-deemed-illegitimate-by-surrey-daily-hive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609920\/","title":{"rendered":"Metro Vancouver’s investment attraction agency deemed illegitimate by Surrey | Daily Hive"},"content":{"rendered":"

The City of Surrey has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking to invalidate the Metro Vancouver Regional District\u2019s economic development and investment attraction agency known as \u201cInvest Vancouver,\u201d<\/a> arguing the program was created without proper legal authority.<\/p>\n

According to the court filing early this month, Surrey\u2019s municipal government is asking the court to declare that the regional district\u2019s establishment of Invest Vancouver is ultra vires \u2014 meaning beyond its legal powers \u2014 and therefore \u201cof no effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the heart of the dispute is whether the regional district followed the requirements set out in provincial legislation, particularly the Local Government Act, when creating the regional economic development agency.<\/p>\n

All of Canada\u2019s largest urban areas have regional economic and investment attraction agencies dedicated to promoting the business activities of their regions, and similar entities also exist for major regions in the United States.<\/p>\n

Toronto Global and the Calgary Economic Development, for instance, have annual operating budgets of about $7.5 million and nearly $19 million, respectively. Both entities were also created many years before Metro Vancouver\u2019s region-wide agency.<\/p>\n

However, the City of Surrey alleges that while the regional district has historically provided regional services, it failed to pass a required \u201cestablishing bylaw\u201d before launching Invest Vancouver. Without that bylaw, the petition argues, the agency cannot legally operate.<\/p>\n

The filing claims the district is \u201ca creature of statute\u201d and can only exercise powers explicitly granted by legislation. As a result, any administrative action \u2014 such as creating a new regional service \u2014 must strictly comply with statutory requirements.<\/p>\n

Invest Vancouver is described in the petition as a regional economic development initiative focused on attracting investment, supporting key industries, and promoting the region globally.<\/p>\n

The agency evolved from earlier discussions and planning efforts for its creation, dating back to at least 2015, when the regional district\u2019s board of directors began exploring a regional economic prosperity strategy. A formal business plan was followed in 2019, outlining goals such as collaboration, data collection, and strategic investment attraction.<\/p>\n

When it launched in 2021, the regional district officially named its economic development service as \u201cInvest Vancouver.\u201d By 2025, as part of a planned years-long ramp-up of its efforts and staffing, Invest Vancouver\u2019s annual budget had grown to approximately $4.76 million, funded largely through requisitions from the region\u2019s municipal governments and supplemented by external partnerships. The City of Surrey alone has contributed more than $2.6 million to Invest Vancouver since 2019, according to the filing.<\/p>\n

Surrey contends that the regional district cannot rely on older authorities \u2014 such as \u201cdevelopment function letters patent\u201d dating back decades \u2014 to justify the modern-day operation of Invest Vancouver.<\/p>\n

The petition argues that economic development services, particularly those involving coordination, research, and investment attraction, require explicit authorization under current legislation. Without an establishing bylaw, Surrey\u2019s lawyers state, the service was never lawfully created.<\/p>\n

The City also challenges the regional district\u2019s interpretation of what qualifies as a \u201ccontinued service\u201d under provincial law, asserting that Invest Vancouver represents a new initiative rather than a continuation of pre-existing functions.<\/p>\n

If successful, the challenge could have significant implications for regional governance and shared services across Metro Vancouver. A ruling in Surrey\u2019s favour could force the regional district to revisit how it establishes and funds programs that span 21 municipal governments.<\/p>\n

When asked by Daily Hive Urbanized to provide a comment on the legal dispute, the regional district stated that they are not able to elaborate on the arguments made, but asserted that the creation of Invest Vancouver did not require an establishing bylaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvest Vancouver was developed through a transparent governance process, with multiple Board endorsements, including approval through the annual budgeting process. Metro Vancouver will respond fully through the appropriate legal process,\u201d stated the regional district on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvest Vancouver emerged from Board\u2011directed work beginning in 2015 to strengthen coordination and competitiveness across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 2025<\/a>, Invest Vancouver was spared from the regional district\u2019s operating budget cuts, with the regional district telling Daily Hive Urbanized this amounts to a reaffirmation of the regional district\u2019s board of directors\u2019 support in the agency.<\/p>\n

This complaint from Surrey\u2019s municipal government comes five years after the initial launch of Invest Vancouver.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the regional district\u2019s challenging finances \u2014 leading to major pressures to hike taxes and fees paid by ratepayers and developers \u2014 have been the subject of much scrutiny from politicians, media, and the general public, with much of it initially fuelled by the significant cost overruns and delays related to the beleaguered North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant.<\/p>\n

Surrey mayor Brenda Locke and other members of Surrey City Council, in particular, have also had other open disagreements, if not an adversarial relationship, with the regional district. In early 2025, City Council unanimously approved a motion by city councillor with Locke\u2019s party to have Surrey withdraw from Metro 2050<\/a>, the regional district\u2019s land use and growth strategy. They argued that this Metro Vancouver plan does not align with Surrey\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n

The City of Surrey also has its own municipally-run economic development and investment attraction agency called \u201cInvest Surrey,\u201d which serves to represent Surrey\u2019s interests only.<\/p>\n

Prior to Invest Vancouver\u2019s launch, the City of Vancouver\u2019s Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC)<\/a> \u2014 first created in the 1990s \u2014 served as the de facto economic development and investment attraction agency for the entire region. Those who previously worked with VEC told Daily Hive Urbanized that there was no other entity representing the collective interests of the region, and that economic development and investment attraction must be approached from a holistic, regional perspective. They added that the City of Vancouver-funded agency \u2014 about $3 million per year \u2014 also represented the interests of other municipalities, such as the concentration of film and television production studios in Burnaby.<\/p>\n

The creation of Invest Vancouver subsequently led to the City of Vancouver\u2019s decision in 2023<\/a> to dissolve the VEC due to some duplication in their work and services, with a new, smaller business unit subsequently created under the City Manager\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

VEC led the region\u2019s bid process in 2018\/2019 to compete in Amazon\u2019s competition callout to select a city to establish a second global headquarters.<\/p>\n

Currently, Invest Vancouver is involved in the potential bid process to have Vancouver become the headquarters office of the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB)<\/a>, a newly created multilateral institution designed to finance defence, security, and resilience projects for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members and allied nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Surrey has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking to invalidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-609920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}